


'Til Monday Comes in Sight

by Dillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: And Pepper Does Too, Drinking, Drunkenness, F/M, Insomnia, Inter-dimensional travel, Iron Man 3-verse, Last Chapter Basically Reprises All of IM3, M/M, MAJOR Amounts of Spoilers, Only AU Because Loki's Not In Prison on Asgard, Other, PTSD, Post-Avengers, So Does Loki, Stress, Tony Drinks to Forget
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:05:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's only one man on Earth who understands why going through the portal messed him up so bad.  Ironic, Tony thinks, that it should be Loki...</p><p>I honestly thought this would be a one-shot when I started, and the cozy threesome-relationship at the end took me totally by surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Odin's Dumb Ideas, and Other Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stress: It's like the definition of everything that's wrong with Tony's life right now. And one day he figures out something to do about it.

”A couple of drunken nights rolling on the floor  
Is just the kind of mess I'm looking for.  
I'm gonna dream 'till Monday comes in sight  
I want to see the bright lights tonight

Meet me at the station don't be late  
I need to spend some money and it just won't wait  
Take me to the dance and hold me tight  
I want to see the bright lights tonight.”  
– Richard Thompson

**_Iron Man_ , and _The Avengers_ , and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material benefit.**

 

So Thor's father's got this idea that the way to make Loki pay for his crimes is to send him to Earth and have him make up for some of the damage he caused there. Crazy, right? He destroyed half of New York, did his best to subjugate the entire planet, so you send him right back there again? To do what, to _fix_ things there? Tony's recommendation would have been a nice padded cell, maybe one for Daddy-Who-Wants-Him-to-Fix-Stuff right next door. The Cap gets wind of it though, and he's like, “This is the greatest idea in the history of ideas. This will totally work.” He references the Depression (OF COURSE): Apparently Roosevelt couldn't be satisfied just _giving_ food to hungry people; he had to make them _work_ for it first.

Steve's like, “Don't you see? It works even better for Loki, because he's the one who _broke_ all this stuff in the first place.” Yeah okay Steve, point well taken, but did you have to move him into Avengers Tower to do it?

Not that Tony cares. He's been staying in California most of the time anyway. He's got a lot of stuff to do, new ideas for the suit, modifications, and then new modifications that he doesn't think of until he sees the old ones in action. He's got Pepper in California (where she won't give up her apartment in Century City no matter how much he coaxes her). He's got his friends here. Rhodey's stationed sort of semi-permanent at Edwards Air Force Base, and Happy is very happy with the house he's bought himself in Woodland Hills, thank you very much. Why the fuck would he want to go back to New York? You know what? Screw New York. 

Screw Loki too. ...Screw Cap. – Tony hears he has Loki picking up rubble from destroyed buildings. Serve him the fuck right. It's good enough for him. – Screw Bruce. He hears he's been fucking with Loki ever since he moved in. He pretends he's going to let the Other Guy out. Steve says Loki's pretty good at pretending not to be scared, but sometimes you can see a little something in his eyes. Tony tries not to feel guilty when he hears it. Jesus Christ, this is _Loki_ we're talking about, am I right? _Loki_ , who never stopped putting Bruce down from the first moment he saw him. _Loki_ , who tried to fuckin' destroy his home town.

If New York was his home town. Which it isn't. Fuck New York. Fuck Loki... – You know what? Fuck Bruce as well.

...Okay, so Bruce, and Steve, and Loki are in New York. Tony's in California, where there's skiing, and windsurfing. – There's more hot chicks than you can shake a stick at. And there's Pepper of course, who means more to him than any number of hot chicks, in any combination. ...There's his work, which is important, and groundbreaking, and... Did he mention the windsurfing? Wonderful sport, windsurfing. He's never tried it yet, but if he wanted to, it would be important to have the Pacific right nearby. Like right out his back window, nearby.

And the only thing is, sometimes he gets to thinking about the portal. – No, he's always thinking about the portal, it's like, literally in his mind, _all the time_. – Sometimes he gets to thinking _more_ about the portal. It's the one thing about the invasion that he can't talk about with anyone, because none of the others went through anything like that. Sometimes it's like he's living it all over again: He's got the missile in his arms, he's shooting straight upward... Up, up, through the clouds, and he sees this hole looming in front of him. He can see _into_ the hole. That's the point, you know? He can see into it, not a lot, but he gets these glimpses. There's this whole _world_ on the other side, this whole, alien world. And it's _different_ , it's just so fucking different. 

No one else in the whole world can understand about that, because no one else has ever been to another dimension and come back to talk about it. He's not going to tell Pepper, that's for sure. She's just going to get this expression on her face again like she's _sorry_ for him. People don't feel sorry for Tony Stark. He's a fucking genius, and a billionaire, and he can get any girl he wants, any _time_ , any _where_. But he can't tell Rhodey either. Sometimes he gets the idea that Rhodey thinks he's cracked. Not good-cracked, the cool kind where it makes your musical taste better and your ideas edgier. _Really_ cracked. Like, Howard-Hughes-at-the-end-of-his-life, Kleenex-boxes-on-your-feet-instead-of-shoes kind of cracked. ...And he can't tell Happy, because he never tells Happy any of the dark stuff. It just makes his face go all sad, and then Tony gets this feeling like he kicked a puppy.

Time goes by, and some other stuff happens. Let's spell it out in little short words: New suit-idea. Marathon work-session. JARVIS disabled; fucker couldn't shut up about the food, and the fucking _sleep_. One glass of Scotch, then two. That's all it takes on an empty stomach, and when you haven't slept in two days. It occurs to Tony that there is _somebody_ else in the world who knows about other dimensions. It occurs to him that maybe he didn't like them either. Maybe that's part of why he was so crazy by the time he got to New York.

...It occurs to him that he doesn't have to just sit there _wondering_ , he could go find out for himself. It's his fuckin' Tower the guy's staying in, after all.


	2. Loki's Inter-Dimensional Memories.  And Karaoke.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you drink enough, anyone looks hot, am I right here? Also, super-villains are a lot more fun after you pour Scotch into them.

Drunk-Tony's a good planner. It's... He doesn't know what time it is in Los Angeles. It's not dark. It hasn't been dark in a long time. – How the fuck does he know if it's been dark? He's been down in the goddamn workroom. – It's daytime. Daytime in L.A. means nighttime in New York. This logic always works, except so early in the morning that no one in their right mind is up yet. Nighttime means Loki's home from the clean-up job the Cap gave him. It also means a lot of Avengers around that he doesn't really want to run into.

They might not think what he's doing makes a whole lot of sense.

They would be wrong. Because this makes the most sense than anything he's done in a long time, if not ever. Because seriously, how's a person supposed to go on living like this? How long is he supposed to pretend everything's normal, when he's been through a fucking _wormhole_ , and into a world that's like if M.C. Escher and H.P. Lovecraft had a baby, and that baby had the world's worst nightmare? Someone answer that, okay? Will someone please just answer?

Drunk-Tony is a good flier. Drunk-Tony doesn't have any caution, like Regular-Tony, and JARVIS is there in case he has trouble with navigation. New York's just a hop, skip and a jump away. The single malt's still in the decanter in the penthouse kitchen. Tony wonders if Loki... No, he _knows_ Loki comes out and takes some sometimes. You can't fall through as many dimensions as he has, and not need a drink now and then. He takes it, goes to pour a glass right now. Pouring doesn't work so well with the gauntlets on though, so he takes a drink right out of the bottle.

...Loki's on Steve's floor. That's good. Lots of healthy exercise, means the old Capsicle sleeps like a rock, most nights. No terrors for him. – No dreams at all, probably. ...Lot of rooms on this floor. Tony opens doors. He finds Steve right away. Then he finds the bathroom. No Loki. Maybe he's escaped. – Flown the fuckin' coop. Wait'll Cap wakes up and sees that. ...Next door's his though. He's in there. Tony barges right in and sits down on the bed. It's his fuckin' Tower, am I right?

Loki blinks sleepy green eyes. He opens his mouth in a big, pink yawn. Sleepy-Loki looks like a cat, like your mother's cat, asleep on the foot of her bed: You pet her, and she wakes up and yawns... Right before she scratches your fuckin' eyes out. “Who...” Another yawn. “What...” He blinks. “S-Stark? Why are you here?”

“I came to wake you up,” sounds like the most reasonable answer in the world, to him, but Loki doesn't seem to think it makes much sense. “Listen,” Tony tells him. “I'm too sober. You're too sober. We're both too sober right now. What do I have to say to get you out of here and into someplace more fun? There's got to be someplace open, right? New York's a 24-hour town.”

“It's 10 o'clock at night,” Loki says. “I am sure there are many places open...” – 

“So what's stopping us from...” –

“The question,” he says, “is why I should go anywhere with you?”

“Because I tell you to. It's my fucking Tower, and I tell you to.” Tony grabs Loki's wrists. Even through the gauntlets, they feel thin, very thin, and he can feel the bracelets Thor's told him about, that he wears to seal his magical powers, clinking tinnily against his own chrome-finished hands. “Why don't we just say because I'm an Earthling who needs your help. That's what you're on Earth for, right? To help us? Fine then, help me. I want to talk to someone who understands about other dimensions.”

__________________________

Other dim- _dimensions_...” Loki must really want to be drunk, because how bad can Earth-liquor be, compared to the Asgardian stuff he's used to. Either that or maybe those bracelets he wears seal his … – What would it be? His stamina? Maybe they seal his stamina. Anyway, he gets drunk really quickly, and once he's drunk, he takes Tony a whole lot more seriously. “I _understand_ other dimensions, Stark!”

“Tony.” It's important he should understand that they're friends now. “Call me Tony.”

“Tony. I understand, Tony.” Loki's green eyes are dark. His cheeks are a little bit flushed, which just makes the rest of his face look paler. He'd look really, really fuckable, if Tony were into that. ...If he were still into that... If Pepper weren't in his life, so now he's only into her, and he's okay with that, really. Loki's a _friend_ , what you might call a drinking buddy. He blinks those sleepy green eyes of his, looking very, very solemn. “So many universes have I fallen through!”

“None of them good, right?” Tony's got a bottle in front of him, which is a good thing, because otherwise the bartender might get the idea to cut them both off sometime soon. He's seen it happen. He's not saying it _would_ happen, but he's seen it happen. Better to be prepared. So he fills his and Loki's glasses again and he waves the bottle around some to emphasize his words. “Nothing you'd ...want to see in any of them?”

“No.” Loki shakes his head. “None of them like...” He stares at Tony. “None of them like Asgard... – Why are we here again?”

Why are they here? That's easy. That would be because... Because... “Dammit,” he says, “do you know this is the first time I can't remember? That's why we're here, Loki, because do you ever forget, any other time? Because I sure don't.”

“ _No_!” Loki looks like he's been wrapped in layers of pink, fuzzy vodka-tinted cloud. He looks happy... This is the first time he's ever seen Loki looking happy, Tony realizes. “No, Tony, I do not. I don't remember the Bifrost, or the Void, or ...Or the Other...” He swallows, and his face goes pale again.

“Too much reality.” Tony fills his glass and shoves it his way. “You're too sober, my friend. Way too sober.”

Loki drinks, and he smiles. “You're right.” He refills the glass and drinks again. “There is nothing that cannot be solved with enough... – What is this called again?”

“Scotch.” –

“There's nothing that cannot be solved with enough time and enough Scotch. But it is the Scotch that is important, Friend Tony. Never let yourself forget that.”

...It's sometime after that, that they move to the karaoke room. Tony is badass on “Highway to Hell”, if he does say so himself, and he still gets fits of laughter when he remembers that how Loki sounded when he convinced him to try “Muskrat Love”. Both of them spend some time laughing. More drinks are imbibed. Maybe later on, some kissing happens, he's not going to say it doesn't; not a lot of kissing though, not enough to get anybody's girlfriend worried. These are just _stress_ -kisses, the kind a guy shares with a friend of his, when they get together to blow off some steam. The kind of thing he might share with Rhodey... Only you know, if Rhodey were hotter and stuff.

Later on, he wakes up flat on his face in Avengers Tower. ...On Steve's floor of Avengers Tower, and in Loki's bed. They're both still wearing their undershorts though, so it's okay. A guy can't cheat on his girlfriend if he's wearing undershorts. The suit's in the corner. Loki's still fast asleep. Tony tries to get out of bed without waking him, but he isn't very successful. Loki opens his eyes and yawns that pink cat-yawn of his again.

“You are leaving?”

_Whatever gave you that idea, Sherlock?_ “Uh... Yeah.”

“Good,” he says. “You do not belong here.”

“No.”

“You never should have come here. Now go away, it is 5:30 in the morning, and I still may sleep another hour, before I must wake for the job you mortals have given me.” Loki rolls over. Now all Tony can see of him is one bare shoulder, and a plaid, undershort-covered butt. He tells himself that's just as well. “Bye, Loki.”

“Do not come back,Stark.”


	3. Empty Suits and Monsters ...And Other Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nuts are as good as appetizers (mostly). And there are plenty of perfectly good hotels on the East Side.

All right, so he goes home after that. And it turns out no one even knew he was gone. – See, that's the advantage of living alone. If Pepper were there, she'd have known about it, and then there'd have been trouble. She'd have had to do a whole lot of talking, and he'd have had to pretend to listen. There doesn't need to be any trouble. Nothing happened, he just went out with a friend. He even knew enough to stay over, instead of flying home drunk.

He's practically a model citizen, here. ...But he shouldn't have gone. Loki's right about that. They live in two different worlds. He's in the hero-world, and Loki's in the villain-world. Besides, what if Pepper did find out? Is he really going to say visiting _Loki_ would be worth all that hassle? So when he gets home,Tony throws himself back into his work twice as hard. That's the other good way... – No, it's the _best_ way. – of keeping his mind off that goddamn portal.

...That portal that he isn't thinking about, because he's working. He's got everything he needs, right in the workroom. There's beer in the fridge, and AC/DC's Greatest's on repeat, on the stereo. A guy could basically live down here. – A guy would _want_ to live down here, because the only thing missing here, is the stress and the complications.

And it works. It works for, like, _days_. He's down here and he's working. Then, when the hunger gets too bad, he goes upstairs and gets something to eat. Pizza boxes start to stack up in the kitchen. Sometimes he buys more, sometimes he just eats the cold slices left over from the last time. One case of beer goes, but that's okay because there are others. Then when the beer's gone he discovers that Scotch is actually quite refreshing, when you mix it 60/40 with water. The water doesn't even have to be cold.

That's October. Then in November, he has this breakthrough. He suddenly gets this idea that he's never thought of before: He doesn't have to be in the suit. Groove on that one for a while: _He doesn't have to be in the fuckin' suit._ See he never liked drones much. Those things Vanko put together, that he was going to use to _destroy_ him (as if anybody could)... What good were they without him piloting them long-distance? But Tony's got JARVIS installed in all his suits, and that's a whole 'nother ball of wax. He knows what he can do. – What he has done sometimes, when Tony was too drunk to fly himself.

All it takes is a little bit of an upgrade. Add a couple IQ points to old JARV' here, modify the suit a little to smooth out the control-transfer there. He sends the suit out to get some dinner after it's finished. Guy at Panda Express doesn't suspect a thing. Soon the Mark XXXVII is walking in the door with the Kung Pao bowl, and that's when Tony notices the problem:

He's just obseleted himself. He's Iron Man, right? I mean, _he's fuckin' Iron Man???_ Is he still Iron Man, when Iron Man works just fine without him in it? And if he's not Iron Man, who the fuck is he?

Well all the Scotch is gone, but there's a bottle of bourbon left at the back of a cupboard. Maker's Mark. Happy's brand. About an inch into the bottle, and he starts remembering who he is: He's the guy that saw past the edge of the universe. The one that knows what the Chitauri are like when they're at home... – What they _were_ like... He's the one that chose Earth over the Chitauri-world, and he's still not sure he made the right choice, but it was a split-second thing. They just kept coming, and coming, and the bomb was about to explode.

...He's the one that woke up with half his face-mask ripped away. It could have been his _face_. He wonders vaguely if it would have been better if it had been his face. Two more inches from the bottle do nothing to stop him wondering.

A third inch... – Fourth inch? – ...Another inch goes down, and he has to talk to Loki. He has to talk to him right now. He thinks about that bar they went to: They served appetizers there. He kept smelling them going by the table, but he never ordered any. He and Loki didn't think they wanted any. What kind of bad decision was that? Those things could have been great. They probably were great. He owes it to himself, – To Loki. – to go back and at least _try_ one of them.

He thought he had the suit calibrated so he could summon it piece-by-piece. This is the night he finds out that one still needs working on. It flies to pieces. Cold Kung Pao goes everywhere. At least the goddamn thing didn't eat it while he was busy, he thinks. At least it can't do that yet.

There's a guy that saw horror and then killed it, and that guy doesn't need Kung Pao. He doesn't need Pepper, who would just start asking questions he couldn't answer. And the suit's just a way of traveling, like a plane, only faster. That guy puts the suit on. He heads across country to find somebody who _knows_ what he's talking about. ...Somebody who understands.

__________________________

That guy finds Loki doing some kind of scut-work on the Lower East Side. A couple of other guys look up. “Iron Man here,” he says. “Just checking up on the prisoner.” Oh of course, right, that makes sense. They nod, get back to what they were doing.

“What the fuck time is it?” Tony looks at his watch (only he can't see it of course, because the suit's in the way).

“It is nine in the morning.” Loki looks at him with eyes that look dead. _Oh Reindeer Games, I know where you get eyes like that!_ “Why are you here again to bother me?”

“You know the drill,” he says. And Loki knows it.

Sawdust on the floor... – Who knew they even still _made_ bars with sawdust on the floor? Must be some kind of a retro-thing. – ...Cool, beer-scented air. He wanted to go back to the other place, the one with the appetizers, but this place is close. And let's face it, he and Loki are kind of conspicuous. This place has nuts. Down at the end of the bar it has a jar with pickled mystery-things in it. Cow-fetuses maybe. The nuts are good though, and the Scotch is low-end, but drinkable.

Two or three Scotches right away, just to make up for the alcohol he lost on the flight over here. A couple more after that. Loki's ordering pretty freely too. Hey, that's cool. He's the one playing host here.

“What was it like?” He's got enough in him that the feelings have gone away, and the walls of the bar do crazy tilt-things when he tries to look at them.

Loki's eyes are pools of green that you could drown in. “What was what like?”

“The...” Tony gestures, tries to think. “The what-do-you-call-it... The Void.”

“It was Voidish.” Loki giggles. He leans on his elbow, grabs a handful of nuts from the bowl. He's finished three bowls so far. Asgardians have big appetites. “It was empty,” he says. “Dark. I thought I understood what infinity was, but it proved I did not.” He glares. “Why must you talk about this?”

It's a fair question. “I don't know.” There's a full glass in front of him. Tony empties it. “Somebody else's problems... They're the things you can't see.” He signals the bartender. Goddamn asshole pretends he can't see him. “You're the only guy that makes me feel lucky right now, Loki.”

Loki's evil green stare brings the bartender over in a way all Tony's hand-signals do not (he should have tried waving a credit card). He sets a bottle down in between them, refills the bowl of nuts another time. “You should feel lucky.” Loki tries to pour the Scotch. He misses, then just takes a drink from the bottle. “You never saw the Other. You never... – Did you have a father, Tony?”

He nods. 

“Did you kill him?”

No, he never did that.

“I did,” Loki says darkly. “He deserved it, he was a Frost Gi... Frost something... -- He was a _monster_ , Tony.”

Tony drinks some more Scotch.

“That means I am a monster too.” Loki looks at him, takes his hands. Loki's fingers are cold. “Am I a monster, Tony?”

Loki's not a monster, he's his best friend. He's his only friend, none of the others understand. Tony shakes his head. “So you're Jack Frost's kid. You can't help that. My dad was Howard Stark. He was fuckin' awesome all the time. Do you know how hard that is to live up to? You should be glad your dad was a Frost-thing.” He grabs the bottle. He has to slide his hand out of Loki's to get it. That feels wrong, so after he drinks, he puts it right back in again.

Time goes by. The bar is very silent. – And not too tilty and tippy, not enough so it's a problem. Loki's eyes get bigger and bigger. Loki's Scotch-breath gets so close it's like a wind on his face. It occurs to him that Loki's moving closer, about the time their lips touch. The kiss is warm, and soft (and totally not his fault). It's very, very long. In the silent bar. With just the buzzing of the Budweiser sign, and the smell of beer in the air. And the taste of peanuts and Scotch in Loki's mouth.

They lean apart. “You kiss good, for a Frost Monster,” Tony says.

There are Avengers all over the Tower, this time of day, but there are lots of hotels with vacancies, right here on the East Side. Pepper should be grateful. She wouldn't want him flying home drunk, would she?


	4. Of the Mandarin's Bullshit, and Recovery, and Stuff Like That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know, you can't hope for perfection in this world, my friend, but if you're really lucky, you'll find somebody to help you through.

Okay, well one time, you can say it's an accident. Two times, it's starting to be a pattern. Tony comes home and the whole house smells like Kung Pao, and there's a bunch of goddam seagulls in the living room eating it off the walls and the carpet, because he took off in such a hurry he forgot to close the balcony door. JARVIS is set to catch intruders. Apparently for some reason, seagulls don't qualify. It kind of makes you wonder what would qualify, which is not something he'd like to test out anytime, especially not when Pepper's here.

So no. No more midnight trips to New York. No more anytime trips to New York, not this kind of trips. From now on, it's just going to be in and out of La Guardia when he's got business like everyone else. ...But that leaves Loki. He kind of feels a responsibility to him, you know, because he doesn't have anyone else to talk to. It's weird. Somewhere along the line he's stopped thinking of him as a war-criminal. Somewhere along the line he's become a friend, and you just don't leave your friends high and dry. 

So he thinks maybe he'll bring Loki to L.A. to finish his community service. He attacked all of Earth, right? L.A.'s on Earth. He can come out here and do whatever it is SHIELD has him doing. 

They can get together and talk any time they want. They can... – Well he's not going to think about the other stuff they did. That was just the alcohol, it's never going to happen again. – ...They can talk, share war-stories and stuff. It will be good.

And that thing where Pep's been on him about seeing someone for the anxiety? He's going to take her up on it. He knows a doctor, one who's good with people and has seen a few horrors in his time himself. He'll go talk to him, maybe he'll get a prescription for one of those drugs people take that control these things. Maybe he'll get one for Loki too.

Stuff happens though. Things get in the way. First, this blinding flash of realization comes: He finally knows how to get the suit to come in pieces at his signal. He tells himself the modifications are only going to take just one night, but of course they don't. Modifications never do. There's always these little detail-things you didn't figure on, these slight adjustments that you don't see until you have the thing almost finished. It ends up taking about a week, which is actually pretty good, but all that time he's not-seeing Pepper, and he's not-seeing Loki. Nothing about his life gets changed, and then when all the shit with the Mandarin goes down, Loki's still living in New York.

First, there's the attack on the Stark Building. Goddamn bastards get Happy. Tony issues his challenge, which is ...okay, kind of dumb, in retrospect. They they come and get his house. He finds himself on the run, towing a non-functional suit, relying on kids' toys and garden supplies to defend himself. Then after that, the motherfuckers get Pepper.

They get Pepper _and_ the President. -- He's not really Mr. I-Can-Save-America like the Cap or Rhodey. If it were up to him, he might be okay just saving Pepper and leaving the President, but the option never comes up. It's both of them or neither of them. He meets up with Rhodey and they go in together. They get the President out of there, and then...

And then he sees Pepper fall, and he knows he lost her. It's different when your own death, than when it's someone you love. All the way up to the portal, he was thinking: “I'mgoingtodie, I'mgoingtodie.” When Pep falls, the only thought in his head is, “That didn't really happen.”

He's just starting to realize that it did happen, when she comes back out again. Turns out AIM did their procedure on her, their Extremis, that's killed so many of their test-subjects. They tortured her... It doesn't really sink in at first that they tortured her though; at first he's just glad she's alive. He's so fuckin' glad. Then he sees her use the Extremis-power. It's like watching Bruce turn into his Other Guy, you know, terrifying, but at the same time you're glad they're on your side. It's only afterward that he starts thinking about what had to happen to her so she'd have that power. Later on, when she's staying over nights and waking up crying, and she won't talk about it. 

They've always had this weird relationship, him and Pepper. She's always cleaned up _his_ messes, been there when _he_ needed her. Starting out, it was what he paid her for, but then when they started dating, he was used to expecting stuff from her. There were the suits and everything, the presents... But behind it, there was always this awareness that it's all for show. She's the the strong one. Now when the strong one's starting to show cracks, what's he supposed to do?

Well to begin with, he gets rid of the Iron Man suits. That's just a protective thing, just so Pep won't get any more damaged. He can have a very nice life, working on Arc Reactor technology, thank you very much. There's still plenty he can do on that; he hasn't even scratched the surface. Nobody ever got killed, developing green energy. You don't hear about any power executive's fiancees getting kidnapped, or their homes being destroyed. So that's it: All the suits go bangitty-bang. Tony starts life again as Mr. Renewable Power, sort of like Al Gore, only you know, 20% cooler.

After that, they take a trip to New York together. – On a plane. Like regular people. – Now he _really_ wants to talk to Bruce, and not just for himself, but for Pep as well. Then they get there, and Bruce isn't much help. He isn't “that kind of a doctor”, he says. He can recommend somebody. He knows some docs in L.A. as well as in New York. He can't prescribe anything for right now though. Apparently, that would be “irresponsible”. 

It's while he's in New York, that he remembers Loki. He feels like a real dick about it later on, when he thinks about how long it took him, but to be fair, he's been busy. So he tells Pepper about the times they got together before, how it felt like Loki needed someone to talk to as much as he did. He's got her, he says, but Loki doesn't have anybody.

She gives him that cool Pepper-look. “I'm guessing drinking was involved?”

“Not much.”

She gives him another look that tells him she knows this is bullshit. Then she makes a reservation for them someplace nice, someplace with more food than booze. 

They get there, and their table's not ready (pretty standard for New York), so they start out in the bar. Loki shows up and his eyes are as dead-looking as they always are. He still looks like he's been dragged backwards through the asshole of the world, like he hasn't eaten, or slept, or had a peaceful moment, since he fell off the Whatever-It-Was Bridge and into the Void of the Universe. He looks at Pepper. “You brought your woman?” 

“Pepper's okay.” Tony isn't actually sure what “okay” means in this context. What's protocol, when you're meeting someone you've probably slept with (although you can't remember for sure), along with your girlfriend, who's also the person who always used to clean up after all your other one-night-stands? He pushes the thought out of his mind. That's not what this is about, it's about taking care of two people who matter a whole lot to him. 

Their drinks come. Pepper goes after her martini like she's been lost in the desert for weeks. Loki picks up his Scotch. He looks at Tony.

Tony looks back. “It's okay.” He doesn't actually know if it is.

Loki drinks. Pepper drinks. – Pepper _drinks_!

“Don't expect me to do this again,” she says over the second martini. Then over the third, “I'm just trying not to ruin your time with your friend.”

She's trying to deal with stress, he thinks. Stress is stress, whether you're Tony or Loki, or the most awesome, organized, gorgeous redhead in the world for that matter. This is something she needs to do. Knowing that is what helps him relax and enjoy the drinking. Watching him do it (or something) is what helps Loki do the same. 

“Injections.” – He's never seen Pepper drunk before, Tony realizes. What really amazes him, is how gorgeous she is that way. ...Or maybe that's the booze talking. – She waves her hand. “Lots of injections. _Painful_ injections.”

Loki stares at her, with that beautiful deep-green gaze he always wears when he's totally potted. “What are 'injections'?”

“Earth thing.” Tony's got his arms around both of them. – This is _not_ to keep him from falling over. – “Very painful. Maybe you don't have them on Asgard?”

“We have bilgesnipes.” Loki slurs the word. “They can also be very painful.”

He must be growing up or something, because it occurs to him that they really can't go on like this, – They really _really_ can't go on like this! – even while they're drinking. “Tomorrow,” he says. “Doctor, tomorrow. You, Pep, and me... And Loki.”

“Doctor?” Pepper snuggles close. It really is awfully nice, cuddling with her and Loki. It makes him wish they could just keep doing what they're doing now. Only of course, they can't.

“Doctor.” He brushes a kiss across her olive-tasting mouth. Then he kisses Loki. “And for you, my Frost-Monster friend.”

That's really all she wrote. It's the epic story of how a genius-billionaire got to be friends with a Frost Monster, and then his girlfriend got included as well. It's not the story of how they found sanity, because nobody ever does. This is just the story of how they found each other. Maybe you've got a story like this in your own life too. Here's hoping you do, because this is reality, my friend: The world is a pretty fucked-up place, and the only thing that's going to get you through it is the other people – And the other Frost Monsters – who are there to stand by you.


End file.
